Watch what just might be the worst commercial of all time


This is it, the final nail in the coffin of the American mall.
The East Hills Mall in St. Joseph, Missouri, decided the best way to bring in shoppers was by putting together a video that would have looked out of date in 1993. Random people (Mall customers? Employees? Shapeshifters?) stand in front of the camera, hold up an item, and then sing the word — which is how they came up with the ditty, "Boots and pants and boots and pants!" Pay close attention for the cameo by a woman who looks like Miley Cyrus before she discovered twerking, who barks, "Backpacks! Backpacks! Come get your backpacks!"
The mall's general manager, Caroline Thalasinos, told ABC News that the entire point of the video was to look as unprofessional and embarrassing as possible, which is why it wasn't fully edited. "It was extremely catchy and even though it was extremely funny, I knew a lot of people might take it seriously, and I mean, we had no idea it was going to go viral but I knew that we were going to get attention for it and that's what the main goal was," she said.
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Watch the commercial in all of its cringe-inducing glory below. --Catherine Garcia
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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